PETERSON MILLA HOOKS' TARGET WORK WINS TOP OBIE

WPP's Martin Sorrell Predicts Outdoor Ads Will Increase Share

CHICAGO (AdAge.com) -- A clever campaign created by Peterson Milla Hooks, Minneapolis, for Target won Best of Show honors at last night’s Obie Awards Gala, which concluded the Outdoor Advertising Association of America’s annual conference. The Obies are awarded to agencies that craft the medium’s best creative executions of the year.

The Target campaign, titled “Needs and Wants,” married seemingly unrelated products -- toilet paper and a winter scarf, two pairs of jeans-clad legs and a slinky -- to demonstrate the range of products available at the retailer. Peterson Milla Hooks also won awards in the retail and the special-effects categories for the campaign. Apple Computer was inducted into the Obie Hall of Fame and 12 other Obies were also awarded.

WPP's Martin Sorrell
Martin Sorrell, chief executive of WPP Group, delivered the evening’s keynote address, saying he wasn’t going to talk about outdoor, but he was going to talk about how WPP sees the industry that outdoor is a part of. He went on to cite inflated TV pricing and the move to increase spending in measurable media as reasons he forecasts marketers will employ an “increased share of outdoor, which is still rather small, 3% in this market and double digits in some international markets, particularly as it becomes more measurable.”

While measurability of outdoor and key initiatives from the outdoor measurement services Traffic Audit Bureau made headlines at the conference, the need for better creative was also a hot topic. Earlier in the day the OAAA's president-CEO, Nancy Fletcher, challenged the attendees, a mix of agency and outdoor executives, to “say no to mediocre creative.”

New billboard simulations
“Believe me, I know turning away work isn’t easy,” she said. “But doing so can actually help your business and it certainly helps the industry.” The OAAA recently launched an online roadside simulation software program called Outdoor Drive that allows agencies to drop in creative and check the readability and impact of the work.

A good sign that the emphasis on creative is working is that a record percentage of this year’s Obie entries came from the agencies, according to the OAAA. The organization says the increase is directly related to its efforts in raising the medium’s profile within the creative community.